Category Archives: Media Coverage

As a leading organization at the intersection of religion, sexuality, gender, and reproductive health, the Religious Institute’s work receives regular coverage in both national and local media. Below you will find some of the most recent media coverage of the Religious Institute.For press inquiries or further information about the Religious Institute, contact Drew Konow at 203-222-0055 or konow@religiousinstitute.org. Please click here to join the Religious Institute Press List.

More than 80 leaders from 20 denominations participated in the unified weekend of prayer, which was organized by the Religious Institute, an organization that advocates for reproductive health in faith communities.

Unlike many conservatives, most progressives don’t believe that prayer can sway the outcome of court cases. Amicus briefs, maybe — which is why the Religious Institute got 1,300 faith leaders, myself included, to sign one it filed with the Supreme Court.

We are at a time when institutional religion’s influence is waning in society. However, that doesn’t mean that religion itself is no longer influential, it just means that people are finding new and different ways to engage with their faith.

Last month I joined more than 1,200 individual religious leaders and pastoral counselors in signing a friend of the court brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a Texas state law designed to cut off women’s access to abortion by forcing clinics to close.

Despite The Episcopal Church’s General Convention resolutions supporting same sex marriage and equal access to all levels of ministry (lay and ordained) for transgender people, many LGBTIQ Episcopalians in the United States still face discrimination in their churches.

A Time to Embrace: Why the Sexual and Reproductive Justice Movement Needs Religion, a new report written by the Westport, Connecticut-based Religious Institute, corrects this misimpression and briefly traces the history of religious support for birth control, and later, abortion, LGBTQ rights, and the freedom to marry. The report also provides an insightful overview of how and why this support has waxed and waned over the past 85 years.

“The Religious Right tries to say it owns these issues, but the majority of religious Americans support sexual health,” said Rev. Debra W. Haffner, President of the Religious Institute. “It’s time to change the conversation.”

It’s time for policymakers to know that religious conservatives do not have a monopoly on moral views around sexual and reproductive issues. In fact, the truth is majorities of Americans – across religious traditions – support sexual rights, sexuality education and contraception. Majorities of all religious groups—with the exception of white evangelical Protestants—believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

Renewing the engagement of religious leaders and people of faith is essential to the progress and long-term success of the sexual and reproductive health and justice movement. That’s the key finding of a new white paper to be published by the Religious Institute titled “A Time to Embrace.”